MacWorld Expo San Francisco 2001

The new Finder window toolbar is both smaller and more versatile than
its predecessor. Check out the comparison below:

Old Finder toolbar

New customizable Finder toolbar

The new toolbar is customizable via a process that is strikingly
similar to the toolbar customization screen used in the Mac version of
Internet Explorer 5. Compare IE5's toolbar customization screen to the
movie of the same feature in the new Finder:

Mac IE5 customizable toolbar (click to enlarge)

New customizable Finder toolbar (click to play movie)

Both applications replace the contents of the window with a screen
full of draggable icons, and both provide draggable sets of default
toolbar configurations. Even the instructional text is similar. I'll
reserve final judgement on the UI merits of such a system until I have a
chance to use it myself, but Apple clearly thinks it's a good idea
because this customizable toolbar widget has been added to the Mac OS X
interface framework, and appears in other
applications as well as the Finder.

These new toolbars are so
popular, in fact, that the previously vacant right side of the window
title bar is now dedicated to an oblong widget that is used to toggle
the visibility of the toolbar. When the toolbar is not visible,
double-clicking a folder within that window will spawn a new Finder
window, emulating the classic Finder's behavior. It's not clear if the
choice to spawn or replace is still a Finder preference or is entirely
controlled by the visibility of the toolbar.

The toolbars can feature any combination of images and text, and
there are many possible functions to choose from in the toolbar
customization screen. The Finder also features a status bar widget that
may optionally be displayed in windows. It shows the number of items
and the space available on the volume, much like the status bar in the
classic Mac OS Finder.

Finally, Finder window title bars once again contain the name of the
folder they are displaying rather than the generic title "Finder" that
was used in Public Beta. Proxy icons also appear to have returned.
(Proxy icons are the small icons to the left of the window title in the
title bar that can act as drag proxies for the actual folder.)